Jerry Walls and Joseph Dongell — The Moral and Pastoral Case¶

Most books against Calvinism argue from exegesis. This one argues from the pulpit and the deathbed: what can you actually say to a congregation if the system is true?

Who they are¶

Jerry L. Walls is a philosopher in the Wesleyan tradition, known for his work on hell, purgatory, and the goodness of God; he writes as someone for whom the doctrine of eternal punishment is not an abstraction but the test case for whether God is good. Joseph R. Dongell is a New Testament scholar at Asbury Theological Seminary. Their 2004 book Why I Am Not a Calvinist (InterVarsity) alternates philosophical and biblical chapters.

Their best arguments¶

1. The "no good news" problem¶

The gospel is announced to mixed crowds: "Christ died for you; repent and believe." On the Reformed account, Christ died for the elect only, and no one knows who the elect are. So the preacher either says something false (if the hearer is reprobate) or says something he cannot know to be true of anyone in front of him. Walls and Dongell press this as a practical contradiction: a message whose content cannot be stated to its audience is not a genuine offer. The standard Reformed reply — that the offer is sincere because God commands all to believe, and that the preacher need not know the decree — is answered by asking what the hearer is supposed to do with it: trust a promise whose content is "if you are elect, this is for you." That is not good news; it is a lottery with a hidden drum.

2. The arbitrariness objection¶

If election is unconditional, then the difference between two sinners equally guilty and equally unable is located in God's choice and nowhere else. Walls and Dongell argue that this makes the choice arbitrary in the precise sense: no reason in the object explains it. They grant God is not capricious, but the system has removed every candidate reason — faith, works, foreseen response — leaving only the bare will, which is what "arbitrary" means. And a love that selects some and passes over others with no differentiating reason is not the love the Bible describes, which is set on the undeserving but is also offered to all.

3. Determinism is not biblical sovereignty¶

They distinguish God's sovereignty (his purpose cannot be thwarted) from exhaustive determinism (every event, including every sin and every act of unbelief, is fixed by decree). The Bible's sovereignty language is about God's rule over history and his faithfulness to his promises, not about a causal chain that makes the fall and every subsequent sin necessary. They also press the compatibilist maneuver: redefining "free" as "doing what you most desire" saves the word but not the thing, because it cannot ground the responsibility that makes praise and blame just. If the lost are lost by their own refusal, judgment is fair; if by decree, it is not.

One representative work¶

Why I Am Not a Calvinist. Start with the opening chapters on the "no good news" problem, then the chapter on arbitrariness; the biblical chapters are the weaker half and are best read alongside the casebook's exegetical files.

Their distinctive contribution¶

They moved the argument from "which proof text?" to "what kind of God, and what kind of preacher?" — and did it without invective, which keeps it usable in a small group. Walls's work on hell gives the moral argument its stakes: whether the God who decrees is good enough to worship.

Where the case is weakest¶

The book's exegesis is thin. Romans 9, John 6, and Ephesians 1 get far less space than they need, and a Reformed reader will conclude that the strongest texts were skipped. The arbitrariness objection depends on a moral intuition that the Reformed can simply deny (they will say God's will is the standard of goodness, not answerable to ours), and the casebook should not rest on intuition alone. The determinism critique sometimes engages a blunt fatalism rather than the more careful compatibilism of Edwards or Warfield, though the authors do address it. And their account assumes a libertarian freedom that the casebook's own argument does not require — free, non-coerced response can be defended on other grounds. See The two wills for where the consistency problem bites hardest.

What to borrow¶

The "no good news" test, the arbitrariness formulation (no reason in the object), the sovereignty/determinism distinction, and the pastoral register. Pair their questions with real exegesis; do not let the moral argument do the work the text must do.